I have never understood the arbitrary travel policies in many organisations, where more senior staff are permitted to travel in business, or even first class, whereas your everyday pleb employee must fly economy.

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It does not make sense in terms of productivity, but clearly it makes economic sense to have the majority travel more cheaply, in which case everyone should be flying economy. More senior staff could always use their additional salary to upgrade. Of course the business class flights come with lounge access, and the ultimate, being invited into the Qantas Chairman’s lounge.

What these work travel policies overlook is the sense of resentment from staff, who are made to feel second rate, and less valued. It continues at the destination where executive staff get to stay in fancier hotels than everybody else.

These are nothing more than perks that have no relevance to performance. For all the rhetoric of flat organisations, each of these perks reinforces the hierarchy, and sends a (possibly) inadvertent message that it is position, not performance that gets rewarded. So much for a “culture of excellence” and similar trite value statements.

Even in the absence of formal token economies, they develop in other subtle ways. When I started at UNSW, academics’ offices had Linoleum floors, but lecture rooms had carpet squares.

These squares became the tokens, and were highly prized when they came “on the market” to feather the office nests of academics in the know. Corner offices, corner desks, being on a higher floor, the possibilities for a token economy to take hold are almost infinite.

The problem with perks, is that they are easy to give out, and very difficult to take away from those accustomed to receiving them. However, there is life beyond the perks.

It is liberating to make decisions on one’s own terms, rather than drooling like Pavlov’s dog at the prospect of a little reward. There is life beyond the yellow (or platinum) brick road.

Dr Jim Bright FAPS owns Bright and Associates, a career management consultancy, and is director of evidence & impact at BECOME Education. Email to [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DrJimBright